Saturday, December 15, 2007

Did A-Rod Lie to Katie Couric?

Ever seen the movie, The Negotiator? It stars Samuel L. Jackson as a City Police Hostage Negotiator who is framed & takes hostages for himself. Thriller!

Anyway, in that movie, Samuel L. Jackson's character interviews a man who he thinks aided in framing him, and, in the process of interrogating him, accuses him of lying:

Turn Your Volume WAY Up

If you couldn't make out what he said, in essence, Samuel L. Jackson's character calls the guy out on a lie. The way he does this is by watching his eye movements when he answers questions. The way you can tell is this: if the subject of a question shifts his eyes to his left, he is accessing the portion of his brain reserved for memory. Thus, he is telling the truth. If the subject shifts his eyes to his right, he is accessing the portion of his brain for creativity. Thus, he is making up what he says.

This website confirms the information from that movie scene. It further breaks down the eye movements into 6 directions, but the basic right/left distinction remains. Also, this phenomenon is BACKWARDS (e.g. eyes to the subject's right for memory & eyes to the subject's left for lying) for people who are left-handed.

And now to our feature presentation: Alex Rodriguez. On Thursday, mere moments after the release of George Mitchell's Report on Performance Enhancing Drug Use in Major League Baseball, Katie Couric interviewed A-Rod for a piece that will air tonight on the CBS Weekly News Magazine, 60 Minutes. Take a look at the clip that is linked for you below and, in particular, pay attention to the movement of A-Rod's eyes when he answers Katie's question regarding whether he had ever been tempted to take any performance enhancing substances.

So what do you think? Was A-Rod, who bats & throws right-handed, accessing the section of his brain where creativity takes place before he answered that question? Was A-Rod lying?

Another plausible theory goes like this... A-Rod is very concerned with his reputation. He wants people to like him, almost too much. Almost to a fault. He's giving an interview that will go a long way toward forming people's opinions of him, especially of people who don't watch ESPN, listen to sports talk radio, or follow sports closely. You could almost see him asking himself in that moment, "What answer should I give?" Or, "What's the best way I could answer this so that people don't hate me?" Thus, if A-Rod was really thinking such thoughts, he wasn't so much concerned with concealing past steroid use or desires as much as he was giving an answer that made people like him or look up to him.

I know it's a stretch, but this admittedly-biased baseball fan is gonna chalk this one up as circumstantial evidence of lying about PED use. Almost everyone that slime-ball Jose Canseco has named has been outed as a user or corroborated as an alleged user by other accounts. His accusations look more & more credible as time passes and more evidence surfaces. And he continues to be adamant that A-Rod is, or was, a user. And in the court of public opinion, sometimes accusations & circumstantial evidence is enough. We're not trying the man for murder. We're merely judging his athleticism, Hall of Fame credentials, and place within history. And in the absence of a perfect system to catch those who seek to gain an unfair advantage, we fans are forced to form our own opinions. I've formed mine. What is your's?

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I've heard another tip that someone is lying is that their mouth area will retract (move back)...as if the body didn't want to lie, but did anyway...Watch the left side of his mouth after answering NO to ever using HGH or steroids.